Save Our World, Save Ourselves As a mother, lately I’ve been worried about toxins my kids might be ingesting that could hurt the quality of or shorten their lives – and about them having a planet to live on, period. I read about obesity, diabetes, and childhood cancers skyrocketing – not to mention global warming – and feel terrified. So I did some research, and put together this prose checklist of some of the biggest things we can do to support our children’s and planet’s health. Some of these items are easy to google to find out more about. On the items that my research showed have the greatest impact on children’s, planetary, and our own health, I explained a bit about what I found. Some of the things on the list may be pretty big changes. But I figure they are not as massive impositions as the consequences we’ll suffer if we don’t make the improvements. Remember the TV commercial from when we were kids where there was a pristine field, then a car went by and a passenger threw out litter, then another, and so on? Soon the field overflowed with trash, and a single tear slid down a Native American’s face? That commercial taught me the power of one – how my tiny part can add to the problem or, if I do what I can and spread the word (kind of like the shampoo commercial where “she told two friends, and so on and so on,”), then together we really can change the world. What I found follows. I hope you find this information helpful. For starters, we can reduce or eliminate indoor air pollution, which can create serious health problems, in our homes and schools. We can do this by using no-VOC paints, flooring, etc., and environmentally friendly cleaning supplies. Combinations of white vinegar, water, and baking soda clean just about anything, and there are many other wonderful green products for cleaning and pest control. Indoor air filters can greatly reduce airborne germs and toxins. We can buy things in bulk, from pasta to shampoo. Carry canvas bags into stores, so we don’t take plastic ones and contribute to still more plastic waste in our landfills and oceans. Buy at thrift stores and avoid unnecessary purchases, reducing excessive consumption – and, therefore, pollution. Recycle, reduce, reuse – reconsider, refuse. We can limit or eliminate the time we spend in front of computer screens, TVs, with the hairdryer, and on cordless phones and cell phones, because electromagnetic fields are dangerous. Reusing paper whenever possible saves trees, which creates oxygen for us all to breathe. We can buy chemical-free products to put on our bodies. (Shampoos, conditioners, soaps, toothpastes, clothes detergents, unbleached – dioxin is carcinogenic – and recycled toilet paper, etc.) Once we start reading the labels of our household products, we can make choices about the chemicals that eventually end up in our bodies. And we can pay attention to what we put in our own and our precious children’s bodies. Filter or distill our drinking and bathing water – at the tap. (Plastic from the bottles leaches into store-bought water, and the bottles pollute our planet.) Many things in our water are horrifying, including chlorine, which is a carcinogen. Eat whole grains instead of enriched white flour, brown rice instead of white, and healthier sweeteners like organic sugar and agave nectar instead of sucrose. Eliminate chemicals, additives, preservatives, and genetically engineered foods. Yes, get off the SAD (Standard American Diet). That said, and none of us knew until we knew – the single most powerful thing we can all do for vibrant and long-term health, as well as to save our planet so our children will have a place to live, is to stop eating animals and animal products. Albert Einstein said, “Nothing will benefit health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” Here are some facts from John Robins’ book, “The Food Revolution.” *The amount of water required to produce one pound of the following foods is: for 1 pound each of lettuce and tomatoes, 23 gallons of water; potatoes, 24 gallons; wheat, 25 gallons; carrots, 33 gallons; apples, 49 gallons; chicken, 815 gallons; pork, 1,630 gallons; and beef, 5,214 gallons. *Life forms destroyed in the production of each fast-food hamburger made from rainforest beef: members of 20 to 30 different plant species, 100 different insect species, and dozens of bird, mammal and reptile species. The leading cause of species being threatened or eliminated in the tropical rainforests and in the US is livestock grazing. Forests provide our children and us with oxygen to breathe; they stabilize our climate, and get rid of greenhouse gasses. Every second, an area of rainforest the size of a football field is destroyed forever. *Area of Earth’s total landmass used as pasture for cattle and other livestock: one-half. Marc Reisner, in “Cadillac Desert,” says, “The West’s water crisis – and many of its environmental problems as well – can be summed up, implausible as this may seem, in a single word: livestock.” Not only does choosing to refrain from eating dead animals’ bodies, eggs and milk products save our environment, it can save our health and our lives. The leading killers of Americans are diseases caused by eating animals and animal products. In fact, vegetarians (those who eat no animals’ bodies, including those of sea animals and birds) and vegans (vegetarians who eat no animal products, including dairy and eggs) have lower rates of all the major diseases that plague us today, including diabetes, gallstones, kidney disease, obesity, colon disease, hypertension, heart disease and cancer. They also tend to live longer than the rest of us, and enjoy better quality health. Of course, if we love animals, we don’t want to have them suffer the way they do – in both the cruelty inflicted on them while they are being raised for these products and in the pain and terror they feel when being killed for them. Quitting animal products also makes it more likely that starving people all over the world can be fed, because water and grain can be used to feed them, rather than feeding animals who will be killed for meat. A child dies of hunger-caused disease every two seconds. Many mothers and fathers watch their children starve. Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council has estimated that if Americans were to reduce their meat consumption by only 10 percent, it would free over 12 million tons of grains annually for human consumption. That, all by itself, would be enough to adequately feed every one of the 60 million human beings who will starve to death on the planet this year. Eating fruit’s even better than eating grains – for our own health and that of our fellow humans, as Dr. Douglas Graham notes in his book, Grain Damage. We can produce 2.5 times more food from fruit trees as from grains on the same amount of land. People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals tells us the following: “Eating meat leaves behind an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay. “POLLUTION The meat industry causes more water pollution in the United States than any other industry because the animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population – 86,600 pounds per second. A typical pig factory farm generates raw waste equivalent to that of a city of 12,000 people. “LAND Of all agricultural land in the United States, 87 percent is used to raise animals for food. On an acre of land 20,000 pounds of potatoes can be grown, but only 165 pounds of beef can be produced in the same space. “WATER Raising animals for food consumes more than half of all the water used in the United States. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. The amount of water used in the production of the average steer could float a destroyer. “DEFORESTATION Rain forests are being destroyed at the rate of 125,000 square miles per year to create space to raise animals for food. For every quarter-pound fast food burger made of rainforest beef, 55 square feet of land are consumed. “ENERGY Raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the United States. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers.” And according to the United Nations, “livestock is more responsible for global warming than all the cars in the world combined. Methane gas from cows causes 20 times more global warming than carbon dioxide.” In fact, a single pound of meat generates the same amount of greenhouse-gas emissions as does driving an SUV 40 miles. Yes, the best thing we can do for the environment is to go vegan. Well, almost. What’s even better is moving toward – or becoming completely – a raw food vegan – because cooking kills vitamins and uses energy. Especially the simple kind – eating whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds – with an emphasis on low-fat plants. It’s hard to believe the life we know on earth is heading toward destruction. But just like the situation on the Titanic, confidence alone will not keep us afloat. “We can’t possibly destroy our planet.” But we can. We are. It’s going down. Yet we can bail ourselves out. It’s a lot for many of us to change in our lives and habits, but it’s something we can strive for every day – out of love for our planet, ourselves, and our children. Reading List: Diet For A New America by John Robbins; The Food Revolution by John Robbins; Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman; The 80-10-10 Diet by Dr. Douglas Graham Gabrielle Lennon writes for magazines and newspapers, has had a play she wrote produced numerous times, and has a poetry book and a short story book published. She graduated from Northwestern University. gabriellelennon lennonbooks
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 15:12:29 +0000
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